Microwave ovens are useful for, among other things, cooking small amounts of food quickly. A microwave oven has a cavity therein, with a tray or a shelf for placing food thereon. The oven has a door for allowing access to the interior.
When the oven is in use, the cavity is irradiated by electromagnetic energy. As the food is irradiated, it heats up and splatters if not covered. Splattering is particularly a problem with greasy foods such as bacon. In addition to splattering, bacon produces large amounts of hot grease that pools around the bacon. In order to prevent the bacon from "swimming" in the hot grease, one prior art method of cooking bacon utilizes sheets of paper towel located above and below the bacon. The paper towel absorbs the grease from the bacon. After cooking, the grease-sodden paper towel must be disposed of. This poses some degree of danger because the hot grease is exposed to the touch, wherein a cook handling the plate and paper towel can be easily burned. In addition, this prior art method is messy because the plate must be cleaned of grease after using.
There is in the prior art a microwave ceramic cooking utensil that is somewhat suitable for cooking bacon. The prior art utensil is a shallow pan having corrugations on the bottom of the pan. Bacon is laid on top of the corrugations so as to be above the liquid grease that pools at the bottom of the corrugations during cooking. The hot liquid grease, which may be splattering, sloshes around in the bottom of the pan, posing a danger of burning and also presenting a disposal problem.